Food for fishes Only fitted, Jester wishes He was dead!
ALL Oh, the doing and undoing, Oh, the sighing and the suing, When a jester goes a-wooing, And he wishes he was dead!
Oh, the doing and undoing, Oh, the sighing and the suing, When a jester goes a-wooing, And he wishes he was dead, And he wishes he was dead!
[Exeunt all but PHOEBE, who remains weeping.
PHOEBEAnd I helped that man to escape, and I've kept his secret, and pretended that I was his dearly loving sister, and done everything I could think of to make folk believe I was his loving sister, and this is his gratitude! Before I pretend to be sister to anybody again, I'll turn nun, and be sister to everybody-- one as much as another!
[Enter WILFRED
WILFRED In tears, eh? What a plague art thou grizzling for now?
PHOEBEWhy am I grizzling? Thou hast often wept for jealousy--well, 'tis for jealousy I weep now.Aye, yellow, bilious, jaundiced jealousy.So make the most of that, Master Wilfred.
WILFRED But I have never given thee cause for jealousy.The Lieutenant's cook-maid and I are but the merest gossips!
PHOEBEJealous of thee! Bah! I'm jealous of no craven cock-on-a-hill, who crows about what he'd do an he dared!
I am jealous of another and a better man than thou--set that down, Master Wilfred.And he is to marry Elsie Maynard, the pale little fool-- set that down Master Wilfred-- and my heart is wellnigh broken!
There, thou hast it all! Make the most of it!
WILFRED The man thou lovest is to marry Elsie Maynard? Why, that is no other than thy brother, Leonard Meryll!
PHOEBE[aside] Oh, mercy! what have I said?
WILFRED Why, what matter of brother is this, thou lying little jade? Speak! Who is this man whom thou hast called brother, and fondled, and coddled, and kissed!-- with my connivance, too! Oh Lord! with my connivance! Ha!
should it be this Fairfax! [PHOEBE starts] It is! It is this accursed Fairfax! It's Fairfax! Fairfax, who--PHOEBEWhom thou hast just shot through the head, and who lies at the bottom of the river!
WILFRED A-- I-- I may have been mistaken.We are but fallible mortals, the best of us.But I'll make sure-- I'll make sure.[Going]
PHOEBEStay-- one word.I think it cannot be Fairfax-- mind, Isay I think-- because thou hast just slain Fairfax.But whether he be Fairfax or no Fairfax, he is to marry Elsie-- and-- and-- as thou hast shot him through the head, and he is dead, be content with that, and I will be thy wife!
WILFRED Is that sure?
PHOEBEAye, sure enough, for there's no help for it! Thou art a very brute-- but even brutes must marry, I suppose.
WILFRED My beloved.[Embraces her]
PHOEBE[aside] Ugh!
[Enter LEONARD MERYLL, hastilyLEONARD Phoebe, rejoice, for I bring glad tidings.Colonel Fairfax's reprieve was signed two days since, but it was foully and maliciously kept back by Secretary Poltwhistle, who designed that it should arrive after the Colonel's death.It hath just come to hand, and it is now in the Lieutenant's possession!
PHOEBEThen the Colonel is free? Oh, kiss me, kiss me, my dear! Kiss me, again, and again!
WILFRED [dancing with fury] Ods bobs, death o' my life! Art thou mad? Am I mad? Are we all mad?
PHOEBEOh, my dear-- my dear, I'm well nigh crazed with joy!
[Kissing LEONARD]
WILFRED Come away from him, thou hussy-- thou jade-- thou kissing, clinging cockatrice! And as for thee, sir, devil take thee, I'll rip thee like a herring for this! I'll skin thee for it! I'll cleave thee to the chine! I'll-- oh! Phoebe! Phoebe! Who is this man?
PHOEBEPeace, fool.He is my brother!
WILFRED Another brother! Are there any more of them? Produce them all at once, and let me know the worst!
PHOEBEThis is the real Leonard, dolt; the other was but his substitute.The real Leonard, I say-- my father's own son.
WILFRED How do I know this? Has he "brother" writ large on his brow? I mistrust thy brothers! Thou art but a false jade!
[Exit LEONARD.
PHOEBENow, Wilfred, be just.Truly I did deceive thee before-- but it was to save a precious life-- and to save it, not for me, but for another.They are to be wed this very day.Is not this enough for thee? Come--I am thy Phoebe-- thy very own-- and we will be wed in a year-- or two-- or three, at the most.Is not that enough for thee?
[Enter SERGEANT MERYLL, excitedly, followed by DAMECARRUTHERS, who listens, unobserved.
MERYLLPhoebe, hast thou heard the brave news?
PHOEBE[still in WILFRED's arms] Aye, father.
MERYLLI'm nigh mad with joy! [Seeing WILFRED] Why, what's all this?
PHOEBEOh, father, he discovered our secret thorough my folly, and the price of his silence is--WILFRED Phoebe's heart.
PHOEBEOh, dear, no-- Phoebe's hand.
WILFRED It's the same thing!
PHOEBEIs it?
[Exeunt WILFRED and PHOEBE.
MERYLL[looking after them] "Tis pity, but the Colonel had to be saved at any cost, and as thy folly revealed our secret, thy folly must e'en suffer for it!
[DAME CARRUTHERS comes down] Dame Carruthers!
DAME So this is a plot to shield this arch-fiend, and Ihave detected it.A word from me, and three heads besides his would roll from their shoulders!
MERYLLNay, Colonel Fairfax is reprieved.
[Aside] Yet, if my complicity in his escape were known! Plague on the old meddler! There's nothing for it--[aloud]-- Hush, pretty one! Such bloodthirsty words ill become those cherry lips!
[Aside] Ugh!
DAME [bashfully] Sergeant Meryll!
MERYLLWhy, look ye, chuck-- for many a month I've-- I've thought to myself-- "There's snug love saving up in that middle-aged bosom for some one, and why not for thee-- that's me-- so take heart and tell her-- that's thee-- that thou-- that's me-- lovest her-- thee-- and--and-- well,I'm a miserable old man, and I've done it--and that's me!" But not a word about Fairfax! The price of thy silence is--DAME Meryll's heart?
MERYLLNo, Meryll's hand.
DAME It's the same thing!
MERYLLIs it?
No.21.Rapture, rapture (DUET)
Dame Carruthers and Sergeant MeryllDAME Rapture, rapture When love's votary, Flushed with capture, Seeks the notary, Joy and jollity Then is polity;Reigns frivolity!
Rapture, rapture!